Free The spies of warsaw by Alan Furst Page B

come often, colonel?"
    After the duck pate, the consomme, and the sole, as plates were
    brought with great red slices of roasted beef, the rules of the formal
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    5 4 * T H E S P I E S O F WA R S AW
    dinner dictated a turn to the other partner. For Mercier, a welcome
    turn, Anna Szarbek seemed easy and comfortable after the determined Madame de Michaux--one of those upper-class women who,
    polite as could be, worked like a beaver at discovering one's personal
    life. Anna reported that the man on her left, Julien Travas, the manager of the Pathe newsreel agency in Warsaw, had been extremely
    entertaining. Something of an adventurer, he'd traveled, as a young
    man, from Shanghai to Siam by foot and oxcart, and told a good story.
    Mercier and Anna worked their way through the roast, then the
    macedoine of vegetables, left the quivering tangerine flan on their
    plates, drank the coffee, and tasted the cognac. Then it was time for
    the nightclub. The Adria was not far from the Europejski, but one had
    to arrive in one's automobile. As they drove away from the hotel, Anna
    said, "Is this something you do often?"
    "Now and then, it's part of the job."
    "Good lord."
    "Sip the wine, taste the food, find everyone fascinating--a good
    motto for diplomacy."
    She shook her head. "I guess that's one way to save the world."
    "Yes, one way," he said. "After the fish."
    There were tables reserved for them at the Adria, and more place
    cards, which led to a lighthearted interval of confusion and commentary in the dark, smoky nightclub. Mercier found that Colonel Vyborg
    had had them seated at his own table, with the director of Renault's
    armaments division and a major in the purchasing section of the Polish General Staff, an owlish, balding fellow, and their wives.
    After they were settled, Vyborg ordered champagne, three bottles
    of Veuve Clicquot, and, as the waiter opened the first, a blue spotlight
    pierced the darkness to reveal, on the small platform that served as a
    stage, Marko the Magician--so said a card on an easel--in top hat
    and tails, his face stark white with makeup. And his assistant, a girl in
    a very brief spangled costume, who opened her mouth, from which
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    H OT E L E U RO P E J S K I * 5 5
    Marko began to extract, with immaculate white gloves, a series of red
    balls. Another, then another, each one producing horrified glances at
    the audience as she discovered yet one more red ball inside her. The
    major's wife, on Mercier's left, began to giggle, and Mercier guessed
    she'd more than sampled the dinner wines. The wife of the Renault
    director whispered, "Next time, darling, don't eat so many balls."
    "How was your dinner?" Vyborg asked Anna.
    "Very good."
    "And the wine?"
    "That too, very good."
    Leaning across his wife, the Renault director said to the major,
    "What did you think of our presentation, in Paris? You were with the
    purchasing delegation, as I recall."
    "Yes, I was," said the major. "A strong field trial, I thought. Of
    course, the ground was dry."
    "Yes, one's always at the mercy of the weather."
    "As are we," the major said. "Our infamous roads, you know."
    "It's very difficult for us," the major's wife said. "In this country,
    we stay home in the bad seasons."
    "That's changing, is it not?" the director said.
    "True," Vyborg said. "We're paving some of the roads, but it's a
    long process."
    "Better roads in Germany," the director said, a tease in his voice.
    "So I'm told," the major said. "We hope we don't have to find that
    out for ourselves."
    "It's something they've been making bets on," Vyborg said, "our
    young tank captains and lieutenants. How many hours to Berlin."
    "To be encouraged, I guess, that sort of spirit," said the major.
    "But much better if everyone stays on their side of the frontier."
    "Quite a number of people think the Germans might not," the
    director said. "What